Editorial

Citation

Taylor, J. (2004), "Editorial", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 56 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilt.2004.01856aaa.001

Editorial

In this first issue of 2004, we have five papers covering different aspects of our field of study.

Andrzej Kaz´mierczak of Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland presents work done to establish a new successful coating for engine piston rings ensuring a good seal with minimum friction. This work is specially interesting as his research has led to a change in the coating used by a ring manufacturer and therefore his paper is of real practical value to those engaged in dealing with piston ring development.

Erik Kuhn of the University of Applied Science in Hamburg and Walter Holweger of NMI, Tubingen in Germany report on some experimental work carried out in looking at the influence of grease topography in the tribological situation.

Dimitar Pavlov and Nina Gospodinova of the University of Rousse together with Ivan Glavchev of the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy in Bulgaria have developed a method of producing complex esters for use in motor and hydraulic oils. The esters currently used in these products are expensive to produce because of the cost of the basic raw material and the great difficulty in achieving a pure resultant product. This work shows how suitable esters could be produced using a particular catalyst technique. It will be very interesting to see if this approach can be developed commercially.

It is likely that we will see an increase in the use of rapeseed oil both as a lubricant in its own right and also as an additive in mineral oils. ErtugÏrul Durak of the Suleyman Demirel University in Turkey has carried out some work showing how different percentage additions of rapeseed oil to base oil alter the mixture's frictional characteristics.

Finally, in this issue, we are very pleased to include a paper by Jens Kleemann of Anecom Aerotest GmbH and Mathias Woydt of the Federal Institute of Material Testing and Research in Germany. They report on work done on looking at the dry frictional characteristics of a ceramic/carbon interface. These results are extremely interesting especially to those working to establish dry friction theories.

As usual we hope you find the contents of this issue are of interest to you. We do of course welcome any comments you may wish to make and are very interested to hear of work done in converting theory into practice.

We wish you all a happy and successful year in 2004.

John Taylor